Story Idea 3

Your lead character returns home to discover a child in their fridge..... 

The story should be no more than 4000 words.

Deadline: 13th April 2013

AM

Robert

20th July 1991


Dear Robert

This has not been an easy letter to write, to send to you now but I do appreciate it will be far harder for you to read what I have written here. I have held a truth for over forty five years and I know I must return it now to you its rightful owner. I wondered for a good time, agonised in reaching my decision, but I do know it is right. I feel that so very deeply and speak not just to assuage myself of some dark feeling but to illuminate as far as I may,to smother this tale in light.

It will not be simple for you to hear and what I will say will seem unfair and change many things, but if I don't reveal this missing page to you then your very essence, your idiosyncrasies and deeper held beliefs would then have only been based on the turns and philosophies that life without this knowledge has allowed you to experience and I feel that as late as it is, you may have an opportunity to rebuild, somehow reconfigure the history of you and in doing so find  answers.

In holding this power my life too has undoubtedly carved a different path, not simply from the truth itself but by my pervading knowledge of your ignorance of it. I have known this for most of my life, and by my action, or rather inaction, you have remained forever in darkness. Of course to many there will be greater significance, but the idle will always make reason where it serves their own delight in others ignominy.

I tell you this now at the end of my life whilst God gives me grace and before I am finally wearied from this world. I cannot make this revelation any easier than perhaps by urging you to consider these opening words a little while longer before continuing.

I was born in Flathead County, Montana in nineteen twenty two and I murdered your father. I killed him for a wrong, a horrible cruelty he did. My act was not a cold blood thing you will understand but a killing none the less.

As a child my world began and ended with the fences on our family ranch. Ninety five acres of rippling plains beneath an infinite cobalt blue dome. Big sky country. When I wasn't being schooled at Bigfork or doing chores, my days were filled with riding the Paint horses that to my young naive mind just happened to live on and roam our land. It was only as I grew older that I understood why they were there, and the work my parents and eventually I would do to tend them.

We made strong sprinting horses and men would come from far off places to run ahand across the beautiful spotted coats, to stroke muscled legs and lift hoovesto check resistance.

We led a simple life and worked hard every day to make ends meet. The horses that we sold were our family income, which clothed and fed us. We had a happy existence, or at least we wouldn't have really noticed if we didn't. The wind blew and we swayed along with it.

To the west of our ranch, the Bigfork river curled around the bottom of the Swan mountains and no matter how fast I galloped across the plains towards them, those mountains never seemed to get any closer and by my late teens I began to dream of what might lay along that river, on the other side of the mysterious hard ragged peaks and whether my future was beyond the fields and small town life in Bigfork.

It was to be my destiny, and it came much sooner than I could have imagined when in nineteen forty one the draft began and I was conscripted into the US Army. I was nineteen years old.

I didn't meet your father face to face for another four years.

Things changed dramatically for me as life was cruelly inverted and the infinity of the Montana skies was now beneath my flailing feet as I scrabbled to find a footing in the frightening world beyond the mountains.

My basic training was seventeen hard weeks but I was enthusiastic and realised quickly that my efforts would be rewarded. I made friends and learnt much that would serve me well in the future. Whilst many of my fellow conscripts from the mid west were in one way or another skilled horse riders, I was seen as exceptional and soon seconded to the 26th Cavalry based in the Philippines. By 1941 modern combat meant the last remaining cavalry unit was slight and boasted less than eight hundred men and horses, but despite this we played a significant part in the allied effort and in December of that year we delayed a Japanese tank assault allowing many units to withdraw to safety.

My efforts in the far east were recognised and over the years I moved quickly through the ranks. I began working on undercover operations posted deep behind enemy lines. By nineteen forty four, I was made captain and had by now been involved in over fourteen attempts to assassinate your father. History tell us that all such efforts failed.

I cannot know what you are thinking now but I imagine and would expect you to doubt and dismiss these grotesque claims; but I do not lie. I have paid a large sum to have this letter delivered to you intact and unseen by any other. The seals you broke to open it will be proof that apart from myself you are the only other who has witnessed these words for if someone else had read it, the revelation would have surely reached you far sooner than the pages you now hold in your hand.

We found you just a few months old in April 1945 deep below the Reich Chancellery still in the arms of your dead Kinderfrau.

There was not a moments doubt as to whom you were and why you were there.  Intelligence had been lit up for several months with the rumours of a child,sending allied agents into a frenzy. Your tiny swaddled body hidden away in the underground bunker was the emphatic evidence we'd been missing.  The lines fell silent.

When I saw your father, I understood immediately so many things that had been said about him, and where I could only tinker with some flat outline in my head, I was now confronted with his calm monolithic presence and it terrified me.  As I entered the room he was standing behind a desk. He looked at me and nodded once. On the desk there was a hand gun half in its leather holster.  I was momentarily confused.

My orders should face to face contact be made were to capture him alive and I know I felt history changing even as I was reaching for his weapon. Suddenly the lives of a million more unknown souls were before me and the dead stood behind awaiting their retribution. The acid rose from my stomach and prickled at my throat.

In that hidden room beneath Berlin, in the time it took me to pull the gun from its holster, a small town country boy became the most powerful man in the world.A rage swelled in me burning the back of my neck and temples.  With arm outstretched I held the gun against his forehead. When he smiled I knew that it was loaded and I squeezed the trigger. It was done.

I cannot tell you anything about yourself to prove my story that is not public record or that by influence I could not gain from the penitentiary records.From the initial bunker blast you sustained second degree burns to the left hand side of your face, your left hand and feet. They were not as has been reported the result of a childhood accident but nonetheless the media have used your facial scarring to graphically support their depiction of you as a monster for the seventeen women you have raped and dismembered.

Your mother was never found.

Many wanted to kill you, the baby we rescued. Leave it to die from its injuries. I was arrested and court marshalled. I had disobeyed orders and expected a prison sentence but the extenuating circumstances could not be contested and I was quietly retired.  Greater powers wrote the history book for that day.

You were eventually taken back to the United States and adopted by Clark and Darcy Raines, your Mom and Dad. The newspapers have already made much of your adoptive status and they have sought to find your true birth parents. They will not.

You now approach the end of your life, to be extinguished as a revenge for your terrible crimes, and it is fair that you are acquainted with your blood. It can in no way excuse these acts but the truth of your nature cannot be ignored and I have delivered it to you.

The bend and creak of your fibres mapped long ago in some ancient ocean, snagged and blackened in your father and in you they have resisted the untangling and purging influence of a stable upbringing filled with love and opportunity. You have taken lives so violently and found solace only in your own aberrant and tortuous morality. I can only hope this letter gives you peace.

May God have mercy on your soul.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the worldthrough one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men,because all sinned" — Romans 5:12


By Darren Seeley

The Confession

By Dayv Metcalfe

Looking On

Sister, I write that word with shaking hand and heart. You will not call me brother after you read what I have done. You may not visit my grave after you know what I have done. No one will blame you, I can only reach into the past to remind you that we were once loving children together. Brother and Sister.

I must go back before I can admit sin, back to when we padded bare feet on fresh cut grass, our father laughing whilst the sprinkler wet out golden skin, our mother busying herself but stealing sideways glances at the three of us having fun. Look upon that time now, feel it, smell the grass, rain on hot bitumen, the freshness of youth, and our mother looking on, always looking on.

Do you remember the day we went to the beach, and we were swept out to sea. We were too little to fight the undertow and abruptly we were in over our heads, you clinging to me, me panicking with salt water filling my sinuses, unable to get a breath. Suddenly there were strong arms around us and we were rescued by a life guard. A crowd had gathered to watch. Dad was oblivious, reading a book. Our mother was part of the crowd, I only glimpsed her, at the back, looking on. Her face expressionless, no, there was an expression, it was excitement. Sister, believe that. Later she claimed not to have been there, and made a fuss and was angry at Dad for not watching us carefully, I doubted her presence myself, and for the sake of the comfort of a mother's love, I told myself I was mistaken. But I saw that expression again over the years, and others - anger, sadness, loss and hurt cunning - all when she thought she was looking at us unobserved.

The years passed, our father would joke with us and our mother would look on, cooking the dinner, being the butt of a joke, never showing anger at it, just quietly accepting the teasing. You remember how we would imitate her, the way she used her hands to describe something, some archaic memory of when hand expression meant more than words. We would copy her, our hands fluttering too, but we were innocent, we didn't mean to hurt. She would look on at us, at most saying, "You are very rude."

One day, when I was ten and you were too young to question, something horrible happened. It was on this day that I knew our mother was not a nice person, in fact, I realised she was an evil person. You remember Belle, our dog, my dog? She died when she was hit by a car. You knew how I loved Belle, it was an accepted truth, Belle loved me too, above anyone. Dad said her mongrel colourings made her seem like a miniature African Hunting Dog, and the three of us sat in awe when a wild life came on about them.

"There's Belle!" You pointing at the TV.

"No there's she is, the puppy!" Belle wagged her tail when she heard her name. In the corner, our mother watched, looking at me, looking at Belle. She was a unique dog, beautiful. It was me she came to, me she followed. Belle the beautiful, the first word I learned in another language. Hit by a car in the dead of night. Me calling for her in the morning,
"Belle! Belle!" No sign of her. It was then my mother looked at me and shook her head: "Your father has something to tell you." I turned to him, and felt my mother turn too, but whilst my stricken face was full of fear, the glimpse I caught of my mother's was of anticipation, excitement.

"Belle was hit by a car last night, she's dead son, I'm sorry." He put a slice of toast in his mouth and I hated him. I turned to my mother and ran to her with open arms, her smile, her giggle did not register with me. She was warm and she hugged hard, I loved her, I had lost Belle, and my father ate toast.

"Can I see her, where is she?" My mother paused and glanced at my father, he chomped more toast, and I felt her frown.

"We've buried her, she was a mess we couldn't let you see her." She hugged me so tight I could ask no more questions, but that night when I was tucked in the tears flowed, wetting my pillow so thoroughly I had to turn it over. Sobbing, I relived the event, the conversations, and doubt found me.

Sister, I could not sleep. I crept from my bed, my body full of instinct. In the garage I found Belle, under hessian sacks. A spade rested beside her. She was not a mess, but her skull was crushed with a vicious blow. I looked at the spade and knew. Our mother killed Belle, because she was jealous. Before I could return, I heard footsteps approaching, my fathers. I dived behind some boxes and watched him approach Belle. He was sobbing and shaking his head, "What a mess, what wickedness. The poor boy, poor Belle." He put Belle in one of the sacks and took the spade. It was then I noticed the patch of blood, a perfect circle, on the spade. My grief burned like a meteor entering the atmosphere, and became hard iron rage, it impacted my heart, and left a crater that would never heal, not until I had revenge.

A child gets on with things much better than an adult. I cried for Belle, nightly, soaking the pillow and wishing for her to come back, just please, come back. I was cool with my mother, not acknowledging her crime, and not acknowledging her. I felt her disappointment, and realized that with Belle dead, she thought she would take the love I had for Belle as her own.

I became busy in the garden, using the very spade that had murdered Belle, I dug garden beds, I turned soil, I grew vegetables and became interested in fungus, wetting logs in damp places and watching the fungi grow and gnaw away at wood. My shouldered began to knit with muscle, my arms grew in disproportion to my body. The Budding Gardner people called me. So young to work so hard.

As I tended the garden, our mother tended you, doting, but always looking at me as she did. I pulled away further, thinking. I turned eleven, twelve, thirteen, and still I thought and turned soil, grew vegetables, and in dark holes I watched how fungi worked at wood. Our father seemed to retreat into his own world too, and our mother became dominant and obsessed. No longer did we tease, and no longer did we play in the garden without her. When she looked on, we looked back as if hypnotized.

It wasn't until I was fifteen, and you twelve, that I knew the time for thinking was over. Dad raked at leaves and I kicked at them, mucking about. I happened to look up at the house and saw the curtains part. I was agog, there was our mother looking on at us, and beside her stood you, with the makings of the same expression. My little sister, who had no idea what out mother was, you, who our mother had made her own, who did not understand the lessons you were being taught. The crater in my heart burned and I reached for it, blood pulsed hot and wild, my father said something to me I didn't hear but as I turned to leave his words haunted me, "Best to let them have their ways, best not to interfere with their feelings."

The terrible, feeble, toast munching man. I was back in the kitchen the day Belle was killed by my mother. He knew, but he thought he should not interfere with feelings. He knew what she was and accepted it!

We all remember the death of our mother. The accident. You were inconsolable, your grief reminded me of me, the nights after Belle. Even my father hung his head, but I thought it was for your sake more than his own. I held my head high, I did not cry, and people noticed. "They grieve in their own way." I heard our relatives say.

You came to me for comfort, gone was that look our mother was teaching you, in its place was the expression of innocence in danger, like the day we nearly drowned. I soothed and I cuddled, I told you that it wasn't fair all the time thinking of the confrontation I had with our mother. It happened in the garage, where they kept the hessian sacks.

Five years in the planning, the thinking. Five long years I waited, rusting a tiny hole in the garage tin roof, that watered my fungus garden on the beam above the hessian sacks. Waiting for it to be close to collapse, to have a finger to point at. I baited the trap, desperate, because I saw you becoming our mother. I left her a note.

"Belle is still under the sacks."

I put it in her purse, and stole her money. An hour later the garage door banged open, and I swear her mouth worked like a dogs. In the corner unseen, I watched her bound to the sacks, hurling them asunder. Her facial expressions were devilishly mobile, first enraged, then sly, then that solemn contemplation we knew so well. Her teeth clenched, she whispered secretly. Above her the garage support beam hung like a thread, rotted by my little wood eating, deadly garden. It was not the hammer blow that killed her, that duty was mine. With the spade I would jolt it into collapse. The terrible spade that killed Belle, the spade I had used daily for five years, the spade my calloused hands knew so well. It whistled through the air like a war hammer, striking her above the temple, meeting resistance before a crunch. She died like a dog, but unlike Belle, she died unloved.

The woman put a letter from her brother to one side. She tapped it once, twice, staring out the window. Outside her children screamed and yelled and laughed and adored their father. She frowned slightly, but quickly smoothed her brow when she felt faces look up at her. Why did they have such fun? Why didn't they include her? They showed more attention to the disgusting dog than her. Whenever they looked at her they seemed to burst out laughing. Was she a joke? She thought back to her brother, did they play like this when they were children? Surely their mother had taken part, she couldn't remember. Her brother! (she snorted) As if she didn't know he had killed their beautiful mother. It was only the facts that eluded her. Murderer! Cunt! His work of fiction in the form of a letter made her head spin, she hoped the cancer would devour him like acid. She looked at her own son, hurling leaves at his sister, he, the lynch pin in the trio. She looked on, expressionless.
By Andy Parker

Story Idea Two

A death bed confession for a revenge murder in the form of a letter. The letter is addressed to someone important to the killer or the victim.  

The story should be no more than 4000 words.

Deadline: 9th March 2013

AM

How The Other Half Live

They were utterly ridiculous, their very existence absurd.  They professed to believe in a God, of which there were supposedly many, yet their prisons were full to overflowing and many lives were lost in wars between the factions. They worshipped singers and actors, inconsequential people, while their scientists went unknown to the masses. They were polluting their planet and breeding themselves into extinction. Their intellect was lacking and their instincts selfish. Yet most took joy in their existence. They were unfathomable and in a culture that revered reason above all else unfathomable could not be ignored.

They had been studied extensively and the biology of their bodies gave no clue as to the reasoning of their actions. The humans concept of soul, some intangible part of their makeup, was not a concept the beings put much credibility in but after exhausting all other scientific avenues it was a concept more and more of the beings found necessary to study.  This, of course, was easier said than done.

The beings watched.  They waited.  They saw an opportunity and they took it.

**

On the morning of July 7^th 2005 the sky was blue, the temperature promised to be warm and just over two million Londoners made their way to their respective tube stations for their journeys to work; some would never arrive.

At 8.50am three bombs were detonated on board three underground trains.  Almost an hour later a fourth bomb detonated aboard a bus in Tavistock square.  Moments later a fifth and final explosion took place on board an overland train arriving at Waterloo station.

Mike Jones was on that train.  He’d gotten a later train than usual as he was hung over and couldn’t bear the thought of being crushed amidst the masses for the entire journey.  With fewer commuters to contend with he was able to get a seat in which he settled himself and promptly fell asleep. He was still sleeping when the train was just outside Waterloo station so he missed the searing light explosion that blinded many of his fellow passengers.  He didn’t, however, miss the ensuing destruction of the train carriage. Metal tore; seats were ripped from their foundations, windows shattered.  Mike was thrown from his seat by the blast and landed on top of a body.  Something hard and sharp dug into the back of his head and he had the presence of mind to wonder if it was teeth.  The body beneath him was wet, the liquid seeping through his clothes and after he explored with his hand he discovered the liquid was blood. His stomach heaved to release its contents and a viscous pain tore through him.  He looked down to discover a metal pipe protruding from his chest.  He was impaled.

“Help me!” His panic spiked as blood bubbled up his throat with the plea.

He desperately looked around the strangely smoke free carriage for help.  All he could see around him were the dead, their limbs missing or their eyes burnt out leaving horrifically empty and bloody ocular cavities. Again his breakfast tried to evacuate and he cried out in pain as his organs clenched around the pipe.  He coughed and a spray of blood flew from his mouth and landed in his left eye. He frantically wiped and blinked it clear as though the act could eradicate the fact that he was slowly drowning from his own blood.  Further down the carriage his blinking eyes spied two survivors who were remarkably unscathed.  They stood in the centre of the carriage in the area that looked to be the impact zone of the blast but they appeared to be in perfect health, even their clothes were unsoiled by the blood that coated the area around them.  They, a man and a woman, seemed to be in shock as they stood blinking at each other and then started running their hands over their bodies as though performing a cursory check that they were okay.

“Help me!” Mike gargled as more blood burst from his lungs.

If they heard him they gave no indication of it. The woman, an attractive blonde he remembered boarding the train with, started unbuttoning her blouse and then felt her breasts as though she never had before.  The man opposite her was just as vigorously exploring his body and suddenly Mike was glad they hadn’t heard his cry for help, every instinct in his body told him this scene wasn’t right.

“I feel…perishable.”  The woman said as her fingers pinched at her nipples.

Her words reinforced his instinct and he tried to inch backwards but the pipe dug into his organs with the movement and he cried out in pain.

The man and woman swung their heads in his direction.

“One of them has survived.”  They spoke the words in unison, their voices flat as their eyes bored into his and Mike was thoroughly convinced no help would be forth coming. 

They stepped closer and he whimpered with fear while struggling to maintain control of his bladder.

“Fascinating.”  The man said as he leaned closer.  “Tell me human, does your terror stem from our irrational body exploration or do you somehow sense that we are other?”

When Mike didn’t answer the man grinned at him but the expression was so devoid of emotion it left him certain these were the last few moments of his life; Mike lost the struggle with his bladder.

“You will be dead within the hour human – where is your God now?” The woman asked in the same flat tone.  It couldn’t have been described as a threatening tone but the mention of his death caused his heartbeat to kick into gear and adrenalin flooded his system.

The adrenalin spiked his defiance. “Don’t…” blood sprayed forth, “believe in God.”

The woman’s grin was worse than the man’s. “Then where is your Justin Beiber? Or is it Lady Gaga that you worship?”

Mike frowned but any answer he may have given was overtaken by a coughing fit that produced great globs of blood – this time when the blood landed in his eye it was much darker than before.

“Leave him.”  The man said. “We have lives to live.”

The man and woman straightened and offered each other those eerie grins. A moment later they had climbed through one of the broken windows and were gone. Mike exhaled in relief.  He was going to live! He ignored the fact that his exhalation sounded akin to someone drawing on a sheesha pipe.  The threat had passed, any moment rescuers would come and save him and he would be fine.  More dark blood bubbled between his lips but it was okay because any minute rescuers would be there to save him. Any minute now.

The beings in their stolen bodies made their way along the tracks to the platform. Alarms bells were ringing and hundreds of humans stood around milling in confusion; sheep without a leader.  The beings easily vaulted to the platform and in unison they pushed their way through the panicking crowds to the exit.  On the steps they paused. The being that inhabited the man searched his pockets; the being that inhabited the woman searched her purse.

“I am Tom Bennett.” The man announced as he studied the license in his hand. “And I live in Brixton.”

“I am Clara Powell.  And I live in Kensington.”

With a brief nod of their heads they each headed in their respective directions to their homes.

The being now known as Tom didn’t like Brixton but he didn’t know if that was just because people were acting out of the ordinary due to the terrorist attacks. In reaction to the attacks there were dishevelled people begging on the street who would shout abuse to those that didn’t contribute to their cause. There were people sleeping in the alcoves of vacant shop fronts, wrapped in sleeping bags and lying on cardboard. A man and woman danced fervently on a corner to silence and the most curious man stood at a set of lights and shouted loud and long in a language Tom didn’t understand and what intrigued him the most was that he knew them all. He stood and puzzled for a while at the wobbling man’s speech but became overwhelmed by an intense emotion when he couldn’t decipher the man’s message and strode on purposefully to his abode. As he strode he analysed the emotion as anger, and though it left him wanting to irrationally punch his fists into something he thought he might like it, it was far preferable to the nothingness he’d experienced his whole long life.

Interestingly as he neared the abode the human he had overcome started to stir within him.  Tom felt a fluttering inside him as though the human were fighting to get out or maybe force him out.  Tom shook his head in disdain at the impossibility.

  “What’s the matter human? What’s at home you don’t want me to find?” Tom muttered.

Despite the futility of it the human kicked and fluttered all the harder which triggered an emotion Tom analysed as humour.

When Tom stood at his front door the human was incessantly battering him to the point of annoyance.  The battering increased as he turned the key in the lock. When he stepped into a silent flat the battering ceased.

Curious, Tom explored the small, clean but shabby flat. No one was home but there were plenty of pictures decorating the walls of his body with a dark haired woman. In one of the pictures the woman was grabbing his head in her hands and pressing her lips to his.  The image stirred a feeling in him he analysed as desire.  The battering reconvened.

Sex. Orgasm. Connection to the soul? He had to know, it was his sole purpose for coming to this place. He had to find the dark haired woman. The battering escalated but Tom found that now he had his mission he could easily tune it out. He went to the PC set up on a small desk by a window overlooking a tiny patch of grass and powered it up.  Within minutes his fingers were flying over the keyboard deciphering every file on the system.  According to their bank statement Thursday was shopping day at a business called Sainsbury’s.

Dark haired woman was at Sainsbury’s. Sex. Orgasm. The human battered.

Tom left the small, clean but shabby flat and headed back to the main thoroughfare in hopes someone could direct him to Sainsbury’s. Three men were walking towards him. They wore what Tom believed was called leather and had ink stencilled into their skin. From research he knew them to be rappers, black men that lamented their government’s shortcomings or their need for “pussy” through verse.

“Can you direct me to Sainsbury’s?” Tom asked as he neared them.

The three rappers stopped in their tracks, one of them imitated Tom’s sentence in a high pitched nasally voice and the others laughed.

Tom frowned. “I’m not interested in your act I just need to find the dark haired woman.”

The three rappers frowned back. “What act?” The biggest male asked aggressively.

Curiously the human stopped his battering. “Your act. I know what you are.”

The three rappers stepped closer. “And just what are we, little man?” The biggest male towered over him with a sneer. The others had their teeth bared.

“I believe you call yourselves rappers or, as you refer to yourselves, niggers.”

Faster than Tom would’ve thought possible the big male had his hand fastened around Tom’s throat, his back was suddenly up against a rickety wooden fence and his feet were dangling in mid-air.

“What you call me bitch?!” The big man barked in his face, his spittle covering Tom’s face which he found to be less than sanitary.

The big man’s hand tightened on his throat and for the first time Tom considered the vulnerability of his human flesh.

“Stop. There is no need for this.” Tom reasoned, wanting to get to the dark haired lady and discover the meaning of soul.

“Wallet.”  Big man sneered.

Without reservation Tom handed over his wallet.  The big male pocketed it without taking his hand off his throat, if anything the pressure of his hold increased.

“Release me.” Tom demanded.

“Say nigger again mutha fucker!” Big man snarled.

“Nigger.” Tom said calmly.

The pressure on his throat increased substantially making it hard for him to breathe.

“You’re actions are beyond reason.” Tom choked. “I have done exactly as you have asked.”

“Yo, I don’t let no one call me no nigger and I ain’t about to start with you fucker!”

The big man’s hand tightened and Tom was sure the human body he inhabited would fail shortly. He concentrated on ejecting himself back to Castron but he was anchored to Tom’s body. He could feel his lungs burning, his head swam as his brain stem was starved of oxygen and the human within him laughed louder and louder until mercifully blackness clouded his vision and then there was nothing.

The being now known as Clara found Kensington frivolous. The houses were large and great expense had been used to make them unnecessarily aesthetically pleasing. The store fronts were lavish, utilising mannequins draped with fine fabrics presumably to entice consumers inside. The vehicles were oversized, appearing to be designed for mass transport but most of them were only inhabited by a woman and a child in a specialised seat.

The frivolous theme continued into Clara’s apartment.  Thick woven drapes framed the large glass windows that overlooked Hyde Park. The floor was covered in a richly colourful Persian rug, a crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling at the centre of the room and almost every surface was littered with candles.  Clara frowned at this; the candles had been used did that mean the lighting didn’t work? She flicked on the switch by the door and the chandelier immediately lit up. She regarded the used candles again; frivolous.

After exploring the small apartment Clara had discovered she was a lawyer and seemingly a rather boring one at that. The apartment had revealed no clue to a social life, the clothes in the drawers and closet were staid and business like, no photos of friends or lovers adorned her walls, where framed pictures could have been candles clustered instead and on her dining table were thick work files surrounding a laptop. Clearly work came first.

Clara rifled through the files and felt the human stir within her for the first time.

“Interesting. You are more affected by me touching these files than you were your own possessions.” The human settled back into nothingness.

Clara felt disdain for the useless human. “You work tirelessly to defend rapists and thieves and then come home to your candles. Do you have stress Clara? Do the candles soothe you?”

Nothing.

“Well little mouse, I am here to learn about soul and for that I need human connection. Brace yourself as we are going out to find some.”

An hour later Clara strode into the Park Terrace bar at the Royal Garden Hotel. She’d managed to find a pencil skirt among the human’s clothes and hoped it would be suitable to attract attention. The bar was surprisingly full but a large percentage of the inhabitants were Japanese and appeared to be conducting a meeting, they didn’t even look her way.

A man sitting at a corner table tracked her every move and she noticed that as she took a seat at the bar his eyes stayed on her. Within moments he was perched on the stool beside hers.

“I’m Brian.” He smiled as he offered her his hand.

“I’m Clara.” She returned and placed her hand in his. She wasn’t sure what to expect from human connection but she had expected more than just the feel of his warm skin on hers, in fact there was no evidence to ascertain if there was any connection at all.

Brian’s eyes dropped to her chest as he withdrew his hand. He was exhibiting one of the signs of sexual arousal, pupil dilation. She wondered if he was also experiencing accelerated heartbeat and perspiration. Was he even now producing pheromones? Would they spark the connection of soul?

“Can I buy you a drink Clara?”

She inclined her head while wondering how long she would have to endure the human before the connection began. He bought her champagne, a drink she knew was considered lavish, but the bitter/sweet taste left her questioning the human’s means over his sense.

As they drank from the tall flutes they partook in the human custom known as small talk.

“Weren’t the terrorist attacks terrible…”

“All those poor people…”

“I hope they find those responsible…”

Most of the conversation came from Brian, a Politian in London for business but stranded in Kensington due to the tube attacks. Clara found him utterly tedious but the champagne was starting to taste better and she liked the way the bubbles tickled her nose.

As he was extolling his negotiating skills Clara poured the last of the champagne into her mouth and placed the glass back on the bar.

“Another.” She directed to the barman.

Brian frowned at her and she comprehended that she had violated the etiquette of the occasion but she liked the way the bubbles tickled her nose.

As she started in on the second glass she realised another thing she liked about the champagne; her mind was blank and a beings mind was never blank. The very purpose of a beings existence was knowledge and not a Nano second passed without thousands of bytes worth of information being considered, everything from quantum physics to astronomy. And now silence. It was freeing.

Clara drained the rest of the glass anxious that the information would return before she was ready, she wanted to keep this nothingness.

Brian was frowning at her again.

“You can go now.” She said and then signalled the barman for another glass of delicious champagne. She would explore the human soul connection later, right now she needed to keep the nothing.

One glass after another took her well into the afternoon when she started to get what she deduced to be hunger pains in her stomach. She knew humans were accustomed to eating every five hours during the daylight hours but she also knew food would absorb the liquid in her stomach and stop the full absorption of the alcohol into her system. That might bring back the information so food wasn’t an option. She knew missing a few meals would not harm her human body so she ordered another drink.

A curious thing happened. The barman said no.

“I don’t understand. I have the means to pay.” The words were difficult to get out.

“I think you have had enough.” The barman said in a discreet tone.

“I haven’t.” Clara insisted.

“Listen lady, you’re slurring your speech and you’re wobbling around on that stool like you’re about to fall off. It is against the law for me to serve you anymore alcohol. If you want to continue drinking go home and do it.”

Clara realised she was wobbling on her seat and held the bar for balance. “I will go home and drink.” She slurred. “To my frivolous home and I will drink with my candles.”

She managed to stand but her motor skills were severely diminished and it took all her concentration to walk out of the bar without careening into any of the tables. Outside in the fresh air she staggered to the pathway. Across the road she could see a store with a red awning announcing food and wine for purchase. Clara’s stomach pains intensified but she was still determined to avoid food.

The doorman of the hotel helped her across the street, clearly believing she was incapable of the feat on her own. In the store the shopkeeper eyed her warily but made no reference to the law when she asked for service. As no champagne was stocked Clara purchased Whiskey and then made her way slowly and very unevenly to her apartment.

When she swung the door open she went with it and landed on her knees. It took her a moment to realise what had happened but then she laughed, relieved the glass bottle in the bag she carried hadn’t broken.

“Look at you now little mouse, what would your colleague’s think?”

The human stayed passive and the fact that she did irritated Clara, she wanted a reaction. After scrambling up and slamming the door she swept her arm over the dining table sending the files, and laptop, to the floor.  Clara wobbled on her feet as she waited for the human’s reaction but again nothing happened.

“I don’t need you.” She slurred as she stumbled to the couch and fell onto it. “I have this.” She grinned as she drew the whiskey bottle from the plastic bag. The first mouthful had her coughing and her stomach burning, the combination with her hunger pains had her doubling over and clutching at her stomach.

The whiskey wasn’t as nice as the champagne and it didn’t tickle her nose but moments later warmth spread through her veins and she found that quite agreeable. Still she saw no hurry to take the next mouthful.

Her eyes fell on a box of matches on the coffee table in front of her. What was the human’s fascination with the candles? Out of curiosity Clara lent forward and struck a match and lit the cluster of three candles. She could discern no sense of well-being as the flames illuminated the candles. Maybe that was why there were so many, three weren’t enough.

One more swig of whiskey, more coughing and stomach pains and then she staggered from surface to surface lighting every candle in the dwelling. She felt nothing except an increasing feeling of nausea. Her mouth filled with saliva and her whole body perspired leaving her certain she was going to throw up. She found the idea repellent, ejecting waste from ones mouth but she found the act even more so as she leaned over the toilet. Liquid erupted from her and her stomach cramped viciously.

When the eruption ceased Clara looked into the bowl with trepidation; the bowl was coated in thick dark blood. For the first time Clara considered the limitations of the body she’d stolen. Was the human sick?

With great effort she pushed herself to standing and peered around the bathroom looking for any sign of medication she’d missed earlier. She lost her balance and fell into the mirror above the sink, as she rebounded backwards the mirror opened to reveal a cupboard inside. Clara’s vision was badly impaired so she had to squint at the bottles within. She picked up one and managed to make out “PPI”.

She lamented her inebriation as her usual awareness would’ve been able to decipher the medication in seconds. She focused, putting all her efforts into remembering the initials and she finally came up with the answer. PPI stood for Proton-pump Inhibitor, medication issued for stomach ulcers.

The human had a severe stomach ulcer and the alcohol she had been consuming all day had ruptured it. She shook some of the tablets into her hand and swallowed them down. She would be okay, she just had to sleep it off and avoid alcohol. Clara experienced regret at the thought of losing the nothingness but knew her mission to study soul had to take priority.

Back on the couch Clara stretched out and within moments was almost in a drunken slumber. She had the presence of mind to think that sleeping on her back was foolish in case she vomited again so she rolled to her side and succumbed to sleep.

As Clara rolled to her side her hand caught the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table and it fell onto the candles knocking them over and spilling alcohol over the table. When whiskey met flame the coffee table became completely ablaze. The flames spread to the frivolous Persian rug, to the thick woven drapes that framed the large glass windows that overlooked Hyde Park and finally to the couch which was engulfed in seconds.

The beings that observed couldn’t reconcile their peer’s actions. Was this the effects of the human soul? Could it affect intellect as such? Was soul actually an infection that plagued its host’s? More research had to be completed.

They watched. They waited. They saw and opportunity and took it.
 

By Dayv Metcalfe

Alex

The carriage was plunged into darkness the moment the bomb detonated. There was no flicker or spark; the lights just went out. Alex knew there were people, bodies near him, and he sensed that their lives had ended. In the fuzzy silence he looked around, head whirring as his eyes adjusted and the flesh and metal surrounding him began to appear between the dust and smoke that crept through the air.

Alex had been thrown several feet from where he had been standing beside a set of doors. Now from his sitting position on the floor, he could see that the doors had blown out and were concertinaed against the wall of the tunnel. There was much blood and remains of the several passengers that had filled the carriage minutes before. Alex could see that many of them had been forced through the windows and shreds of clothing and limbs now hung between the service cables that ran along the side of the tunnel.

Alex stood up, and took a moment to re-orientate himself. One side of the tube train had dropped slightly, tilting the floor down to the left as he began to make his way carefully through the carriage. Moments later Alex heard the sounds.
The creaking of the metal panels that had sprung from the ceiling as gravity now pulled at their last remaining rivets. The buzzing, fizz and clicking of an interrupted electric current and the low groans, primal guttural noises of human pain.

Alex climbed over the debris and bent over to avoid the obstructions in the ceiling using outstretched arms to balance himself. He approached the area where he had been standing before the bomb detonated. Being the centre of the blast it was relatively clear but the blood was pooling here and spilling over the edge of the door opening to the lower side of the carriage.

Alex could see more bodies outside the tube train against the tunnel walls. One made sounds but most were silent. As the dust began settling, the tunnel bulkhead lights weakly illuminated the inside of the carriage. Newspapers were scattered over and between the seats and twisted steel tubing of the hand poles and rails, and Alex could see some limbs, fingers, fluttering through the mesh of steel fixtures.

A woman sat on floor in the next section of carriage and Alex moved towards her. At first he couldn’t see her legs but when he approached he saw that the bottom half of her body had fallen through the carriage floor. The woman looked up at Alex and he couldn’t quite compute her response, the distress on her face seemingly overwhelmed by her sensing him making his way towards her.

Alex glanced down at his body and each arm, and saw that most of his clothes had been ripped off in the blast. There was also skin, and his skin which wasn’t there, and the dull smeary reflection may have been the blood.

He knelt down and touched the woman’s arm. She was trembling quite violently and spat fine droplets of bloodied saliva with each of her rapid and shallow breaths. She was visibly confused and staring intently at Alex trying to understand what had happened and the relevance of this stranger now kneeling before her. A knight, her maker, Death.

‘What is your name?’ Alex asked.

The woman’s eyes widened as her concentration intensified and focused solely on Alex’s face. She lifted her chin and moved her tongue slowly, trying to form and shape the words to speak her own name. With an effort she forced some air from her lungs. ‘Hannah’ she breathed quietly.

Alex placed the palm of his hand against one side of her face, which was blackened from the blast. The force had burst the vessels in her eyes and they had bloomed red across the surface bringing her blue eyes into sharp alien relief.

‘Hannah. There has been an accident, an explosion. It’s over now.’

‘Who…..who are you?’ Hannah asked.

‘I am Alex.’

A tear moved down Hannah’s face and slipped across Alex’s hand. He watched it slowly redden as it as it slid over his wrist and down the inside of his arm.

Alex lifted his hand and gently stroked Hannah’s hair away from her face.

‘Hannah, do not be frightened,’ he said.

‘But I don’t know who you are.’ Hannah wept. ‘What have you done? Am I?…..’ Hannah choked and spat out more blood. Am I dying?’

Alex dropped his head in consideration and took Hannah’s hand in his.

‘We have made a decision,’ he began. ’ A decision that your time here must end. Today will be an historic day.’ There was a proud excitement in his voice.

Hannah looked beyond Alex but found it difficult to see anything with any clarity but she was aware of the carnage around them. She knew there were other people; bodies near.

‘My time? What is this?’ Hannah wept. ‘Please, I want you to stop this now.’

Alex smiled. ‘It is over now.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘It is done.’

‘Who are you?’ She said.

‘I am Alex.’

‘Can’t you help me?’ Hannah gently pleaded. She coughed and had to swallow quickly.

‘These people, they need help. What has happened. Have you done this?’

Hannah was pale, her lips becoming an inky bluish colour. Her body had been forced through the floor of the tube train after the explosion, severing both her legs below each knee. Unaware, she continued to roll her ankles beneath the floor attempting to relieve an aggravating sensation in her feet.

Before today, Hannah had not really considered death but she was not surprised that visions of her short life were flashing before her. They say this happens. The serenity, the overwhelming sense of calm; she felt that too. A slow chemical release flooding her central nervous system, the body’s emergency plans in full operation. Sunshine, Hattie the cat, Mum and Dad, Alex.

‘Hannah. Hannah.’ Alex was stroking her hand now.

‘I’m so tired Alex, I’m getting confused. Why are you wearing that mask? Are you hurt? I want to leave here now please. My feet really really ache.’ Hannah was struggling to keep her eyes open.

‘It’s nearly time Hannah. You will soon leave this place for somewhere else. We want you to know that our decision has your, has all human interests at heart.’

‘What were you saying about history, about today?’ Hannah’s eyes were wide open again and she looked down at Alex’s hands. ‘What’s wrong with your hands?’

​​​​​***

Alex didn’t recognise his dying wife, and would not now understand anything before today. Once his mission objective has been initialised and the bomb detonated, all memory of his past life on earth was erased. Travelling with Hannah on the tube train, they had stood together beside a set of sliding doors. The instruction to Alex had come via a concealed receiver implanted deep inside his cranial cavity and without hesitation he had pressed the detonation sequence into his smartphone which contained the equivalent of nine pounds of plastic explosives. The resulting force blew out the doors, stopped the train, and threw them both in opposite directions.

‘You said something about an history… day.’ Hannah was finding it hard to focus.

“Yes Hannah, you are part of this day, you are one of the so very few. We of the tenth wave have completed the work which began over two thousand years ago. Today begins the Succession.”

Hannah was listening and trying to comprehend what was being said. She knew it was important but was finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate on Alex’s words. He looked and sounded so different but she recognised something, a timbre in his voice.

He was trying to calm her, she thought but didn’t understand quite everything he was saying. Alex didn’t seem to be injured. Had he been on the tube train when it crashed, an explosion? She remembered that they had been standing together talking about what they could do on Saturday. That was just minutes before now, she was sure. Yes, and a man mumbling to himself had got on at Whitechapel and they were rolling eyes and making faces at each other and secretly pointing in his direction. Then Alex had stopped laughing abruptly and taken out his phone.

It was so cold now.

Alex was still talking.

‘…a decision was made to replace every person on the earth but we wanted to ensure that the history of the human race remained intact.’

Hannah spoke, a slight panic in her voice. ‘Alex. Is that you, I think it is.’ She touched his face and felt a sharp coldness tingling through her fingers.

‘Oh God what has happened to you. Please Alex tell me what is going on, your skin. Can’t we just go now. No one is coming for us, I don’t want to talk anymore. Something is wrong with me, it’s so so cold Alex.’

Hannah’s hand slipped from Alex’s face and fell back into her lap. Her entire skin had taken on a yellow pallidness and her breathing was becoming more laboured.

Alex didn’t understand his wife’s condition, but he knew she was dying. His emotional response to her had been disabled and he was now limited to implementing the final stages of the Succession which involved sharing his pride with Hannah, to him a stranger now but one of the very last human beings alive on earth.

‘Hannah, today one hundred and fifty thousand, four hundred and thirty one people on the earth will die and you will be one of them. To be the last of your species is a truly extraordinary thing and a great privilege. Tomorrow a new day will begin on earth and we will reveal ourselves. Life here will finally change.’

Hannah closed her eyes and Alex’s voice drifted away and became a distant mumbling she could no longer capture. There was something wrong with Alex, she needed to help him but her body wasn’t responding to any of her efforts to move.

She remembered Alex was using his phone, then a massive rush of air had forced her off her feet. Newspapers were flying around, and things struck her before she was finally thrown to the floor. An immediate and strong chemical smell pervaded the air and she saw a hot light, fierce but fleeting and now here in the dark, in her quiet peaceful calm she saw the light once again growing from a tiny nebula inside her head. She reached for it and it wove around her outstretched fingers.

‘Alex,” she whispered. ‘Are you there? Please hold me.’

Alex had moved to the centre of the tube train and was climbing down to the side of the tracks. He had completed this stage of his mission and had been instructed to report to Sector 5 headquarters where he would be debriefed and his new identity assigned. He was looking forward to starting his life on this new planet.

After two thousand years they had finally succeeded in removing the entire human race from the earth. The terrorist attacks in recent decades had allowed them to covertly undertake their objectives using the techniques all too familiar to the war ravaged species they had worked so hard to replace. Finally their objective was complete and the earth would be at peace.

Alex paused to look back at the dying woman he had spoken with. Her head had fallen to her chest and he no longer detected any signs of breathing. He felt a sudden and strange sense of loss which he calculated was a sadness for all humans, but ultimately they had not been successful in protecting the planet which had supported all life for three and a half billion years.

As he walked away through the tunnel the final remnant of his skin slipped to the floor. On his back just below the right shoulder, four words were stamped into the iridescent metalloid of his external body casing.

Alternative Life Engine X.

By Darren Seeley